How to assign work in an office: A comparison of spoken and written directives in American english

Abstract This paper examines how spoken and written directives are employed to assign work in an office. It is assumed that individuals in a hierarchical setting, while acting in their roles as supervisor and subordinate, also try to communicate on an interpersonal level. The analysis demonstrates how these two levels of interaction are reflected in the language employed. Attention is paid to the use of pre-sequences, the forms of the directives, and to modality markers. The comparison of spoken and written work assignments shows that more mutual negotiation and signaling of changes in the social relationship takes place in oral than in written directives. Also, there is evidence that the two modes - oral and written language — are organized differently with respect to directives.